Why I Left the US (Again) and Moved to Portugal

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Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.

Kristin Wilson, Host:    00:01:08    Hey there, Kristin, from Traveling with Kristin here and welcome to episode 179 of Badass Digital Nomads. And if you're tuning in today, you may have noticed that the cat is out of the bag. I have officially gone nomadic again and left the United States for the foreseeable future. I'll be bringing you a lot more details about my upcoming travel plans and where I'll be living in the months to come. But if you've been on my email list, uh, or if you are subscribed to my YouTube channel, then you might already know that I left the US. But if you are exclusively a podcast listener, then by the time that you are listening to this episode, I will be in Lisbon, Portugal for the rest of the year. So I just spent two weeks in Amsterdam and now I'll be traveling around Portugal, very exciting, making lots of videos, doing some new podcast interviews, attending some events like Web Summit, which is the first week of November.  

Kristin:    00:02:24    I'll also be visiting the Digital Nomad Village in Madeira Islands and speaking at an event there. So lots of exciting news for you coming up. But first, Happy Halloween. Happy November. I don't know if it's just me, but it feels like October went by really fast, but it was probably a lot of it had to do with packing and moving away from Florida. And it's been really fun to chat with everyone in the YouTube comments on the video because there were a lot of you who thought that I was never leaving again. <laugh>, you thought that I was stuck in America and that it was all over for me, but alas, I have left. And so in this uh, podcast, I will give some of the reasons for why I left. But before we get started, I just wanted to give a few shout outs as we've gotten some really nice reviews this month and also some donations.  

Kristin:    00:03:27    Henry Orea, one of my Patreon patrons, bought five coffees at buy me a coffee.com/KristinWilson and he said, hi, Kristin. I've been enjoying your weekly podcasts on Badass Digital Nomads. One of my top favorite episodes were number 174 and 175. Please keep these up, Kristin, longtime listener of Badass Digital Nomads from the San Francisco Bay Area. Happy travels. Thank you so much, Henry, the episodes that he was referring to, if you would like to go back and listen, were episode 174 on Spain's new Digital Nomad Visa and also episode 175, an interview with another one of my Patreon patrons, Karen Espig who moved from Canada to Albania permanently without ever having gone there before. So I really enjoyed that interview and I hope you've been enjoying all of the new interviews lately since I finished my book a couple months ago, Digital Nomads for Dummies.  

Kristin:    00:04:37    And just to recap a few of the recent interviews from October, we also had Mikkel Thorup up from the Expat Money Show on that was episode 176. He was on the podcast two years ago, so it was really good to have him back on the show and update how his expat life has changed and more of what he's learned through his experience traveling the world during and after the pandemic. And then the last two episodes we had number 177 and 178 were with Vangile Makwakwa about the cost of living in Mexico and also how to make more money online. And it seems like a lot of you are interested in that topic. I mean, who doesn't wanna make more money online, right? So lots of people downloaded that episode and we also have some really exciting interviews coming up in the month of November with next week episode 180.  

Kristin:    00:05:41    We have Alexandra Fasulo on the show. Some of you may have seen her online before as she is also known as the Freelance Ferry. She had her own podcast and she's also a CNBC contributor. She has videos with CNBC online about how she made something like $387,000 in one year freelancing on fiverr. And she has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. She also has a new book coming out exactly about how she was able to make money as a freelancer. And so, uh, that will be out next week. So we have an interview with her and then also with Sergio Sala, another digital nomad slash remote work content creator. He has a YouTube channel that gives city guides and overviews about living in different places as a digital nomad. So we have him coming up on the show on November 15th, and then the following week I will be reporting back for you in a solo cast episode, sharing some of the insights and details about my first month going back abroad between the Netherlands and Portugal.  

Kristin:    00:07:08    So what it's been like coming back into the nomadic lifestyle and how I've seen life in the Netherlands and in Lisbon since being away for four years. So you don't wanna miss that one. And then the last week of November, we have an interview with a newly nomadics slash expat couple, Joel and Michelle Hartz, who are also Patreon patrons, longtime patrons for a few years now. And we have an interview with them in their first international destination living abroad in Bulgaria. So they wanted to go nomadic back during the pandemic. They had planned to go nomadic, I believe it was in 2020, but uh, of course life had other plans, so they ended up traveling a bit around the United States before they took that next step of moving to another country. And so they really opened up and got vulnerable about their challenges that they faced doing that and also kind of how living abroad had met or not met their expectations so far.  

Kristin:    00:08:21    So lots of exciting interviews for you coming up this month and then also in December, but I don't wanna give those away just yet. But we are definitely going to end off the year with a bang and lots of really cool guests on the way. I also had an idea to create more of a conversation among fellow listeners about each episode. So if you would like to just send me your feedback about each episode, whether it's something that you liked about the guest or questions about that topic, I will then answer those in a future episode. So I won't be able to answer everybody on the podcast, but I will pick a few listeners each week and I'll read your comments out on the podcast and also answer questions if I feel it would be to the benefit of other listeners as well. So what I'll do is I'll make a post in our Facebook group Badass Digital Nomads each Tuesday about the podcast that came out that week, and then we'll see how the conversation evolves during the week.  

Kristin:    00:09:37    And then I will read some of those comments and feedback back on the podcast in a feature episode. And so if you're not a Facebook user and you're not in the Badass Digital Nomads Facebook group, then you can just send me an email to hello@travelingwithKristin.com. I also wanna thank Eric for buying a coffee this week. He said, love the latest YouTube video on leaving the USA again, you make me get Zen about my life. <laugh>, enjoy Amsterdam and future Trex. Thanks, Eric. I think Eric's my top coffee supporter of the year. Also, thanks to Susanna who left a review on the website. She says, love this podcast. I just discovered this podcast and I absolutely love it. Kristin is super down-to-earth and relatable. I find her advice really practical and realistic. I'm so happy to have found this community of people. Keep up the good work.  

Kristin:    00:10:37    Thank you, Susanna. And you can leave a review for the podcast wherever you listen in your podcast app or directly on the website at badassdigitalnomads.com. I think the place where the reviews are most important to the discoverability of the show is on Apple Podcasts, but if you listen on Spotify or another app, that's cool too. And if your app doesn't let you leave a review, you can leave one directly on the website. I also got a short and sweet review from Malika last week, who says Pretty awesome. Kristin offers a lot of great information and is really relatable. Five stars. Thank you, Malika. Let's see, any other news that I have for you? Oh, we will have a Patreon Zoom Hangout coming up on the weekend of November 4th through the sixth. I'm not sure which day it will be just yet, but if you'd like to join that, you can at the link in the show notes or uh, patreon.com/travelingwithKristin where I'll be giving patrons a private house tour of my new two-story two-bedroom apartment in Lisbon, which has an amazing view of this city and even of the river.  

Kristin:    00:12:05    So that's gonna be really cool. And that is at patreon.com/travelingwithKristin. Okay, let's get into today's episode, which starts out with me reflecting on why the heck I'm leaving the US a little bit more context here. I thought about going nomadic and traveling again for about a year before I actually left the US and in the runup to making this podcast and making this video. I spent a few months going back and forth like writing down all of the reasons why I wanted to leave <laugh>. It was mostly inspired by telling you what I was doing and why, but it was also very helpful for me to articulate why I was leaving. And I think this is something that you can definitely do in your own life when you're making a decision. It doesn't have to be about travel or leaving home or quitting your job or whatever it is, just to maybe in your notes app or something that's really convenient that you have on your phone.  

Kristin:    00:13:23    I did it in Apple Notes, is I just created a note of why I'm leaving. And then over the course of months, every time I thought of another reason, I would just add it to that list. And so by the end of this process, I had so much more clarity over why I was making that decision because sometimes when you get the feeling that you might wanna do something, it can be hard to process it like it. Like you might wanna do something that seems irrational and then you try to justify it. Or we were taught as kids to make these pros and cons lists, but sometimes it's not always logical on paper. And so it really helps over time to capture those ideas as they come to you. And you're basically building a case for why you want to do something or why you don't want to do something.  

Kristin:    00:14:18    And this can be really useful when it comes to the time to actually take the decision so that you're not just sitting in your thoughts and things are really hazy, but you actually have reasons that you wrote down months ago that you might not remember in the moment. But they are little things that your subconscious mind is suggesting to you as you go through your day-to-day life. And a lot of times your best ideas can come to you when you're not not consciously thinking about something. This is why people always say that their best ideas come to them when they're in the shower or when they're washing dishes or when you're going for a walk. And it's because it takes the focus off of your conscious mind and like a different part of your brain kicks in. And so that's why I like this strategy as it were for kind of collecting data to make a decision, especially when it's a really important life-altering decision.  

Kristin:    00:15:23    So if you're struggling with making a decision right now, maybe you just need a little bit more time. Uh, like anything, you know, whether it's getting in shape or building a business or any sort of big project that you're working on, it comes in little steps. And big decisions can also clarify and crystallize for you in tiny steps and in in different thoughts. And actually one of the best examples that really illustrated this for me visually was hearing an interview with Miley Cyrus of all people, and she was talking about creativity. I'm not sure if it was a documentary or an interview, I don't remember exactly, but she said something like that. Her ideas for songs and lyrics for her songs are like capturing fireflies in a jar. So you see a firefly, it lights up and you catch it, and then the light might go out.  

Kristin:    00:16:24    And so anytime that she would hear in her mind a lyric or a poem or a melody or something, she would write it down or she would record it to her phone, something to capture it. And that really resonated with me because this is what flashes of insight are <laugh>. It's like, have you ever had an idea? And then it disappears a few seconds later. That's why I like to take notes on things like this, like making a decision because as soon as you have a thought, another thought comes in to push it out of the way <laugh>. And so I think of thoughts and ideas like fireflies that I wanna capture them before that light disappears. And so maybe that helps you as well. So this is the audio from my YouTube video. It starts with me sitting out in the middle of the ocean on my paddle board, still going back and forth about whether or not I'm making the right decision, leaving Miami, Florida, and then cuts in with me in Amsterdam a week later.  

Kristin:    00:17:33    And my thoughts and reflections on leaving the US after I left. And then it goes back to other reasons that I had recorded the week earlier. So as I mentioned, I thought about this topic for months before I actually started articulating these reasons to you on video and in the microphone. And I even filmed this and recorded it over the course of multiple weeks as more reasons came to mind. And I think it turned out a lot better to record the reasons why I was leaving, and then also from the other side of the pond about why I left. So you kind of get this transition between the reasons I'm preparing to leave and then also the reasons why I left after I had already left. And I hope that this is helpful to you. If you are faced with a similar decision, enjoy.

Video audio starts:

Kristin: It doesn't matter how good your life looks from the outside, what really matters is how you're feeling on the inside.  

Kristin:    00:18:47    For the past two and a half years, I have lived in what many people consider to be the most perfect place on the planet. A town that is so high in demand that people from around the world spend upwards of a million dollars per bedroom to call my neighborhood their home. Despite all of that, I left, but not without some regret. You know, being out here on a Monday morning and just paddling around the islands in front of my house, it seems crazy to leave, like, why would you leave such a beautiful paradise like this? But I think that things go deeper than just the surface of living in a beautiful place, living in a very comfortable place and living an idyllic existence. And if comfort brought happiness, then billions of people would be really happy then. So even though I definitely appreciate where I live and it's gonna be bittersweet to leave, I still think that it's the right time and it's the right thing to do. But leaving, you always start to appreciate some of the things that maybe you took for granted. When you lose something or when you leave something, you start to really think more deeply and appreciate what it was that you had in that moment. And that's why it's so important to live in the moment and live each day to the fullest and try to find pieces of time within your day or within your week to really do something for yourself and to really engage with your surroundings and just live.  

Kristin:    00:20:37    And so here I am one week later in Amsterdam, it's official. I am nomadic again, and you know, feels really good. As soon as I got on the plane, I felt like all of my adrenaline and anxiety just melted away. And then I also felt that way when I landed here in Amsterdam at the airport just a week ago. So now I'm sitting here watching other planes take off and land, and it's just surreal that I'm actually starting this new chapter of my life here today. Now, if you've watched my channel before, you know that this lifestyle is nothing new to me. It's something that I've been doing for most of my adult life, living nomadically, living abroad, and traveling through different countries. But this time is different because this is the first time that I have been living abroad since 2020 and the pandemic started and it's the first time that I've transitioned into this lifestyle after so many consecutive years living back in the United States.  

Kristin:    00:21:49    It's actually the the longest I've lived in the United States since I was a college student. So even though I've done this before, and even though I help people live abroad and become digital nomads, I'm still human. And it's still felt to me like a hard change in my life. And so that's why I'm making this video to hopefully explain some of the reasons behind why I made this decision and possibly inspire you to make some changes in your life if that's what you're feeling like you need at the moment. During these past couple of years living back in my home state of Florida, there were moments when I thought maybe I was getting a little bit too comfortable. I started feeling again, like maybe I would never leave. I mean, I had my friends there, my family there, I had my stuff there. I bought furniture, I rented an apartment, I signed a long-term lease, I bought plants.  

Kristin:    00:22:51    I started growing tomatoes on my balcony. And yeah, I just thought that maybe that was it for me. Maybe I had gotten all of this traveling out of my system when I was younger and maybe it was time to live a quote unquote normal life. And so it did feel like a big change to reenter this lifestyle and give up a lot of the comfort and convenience and feeling of safety and security that I had developed over the past few years. But what starts to happen after you've lived in one place for a long time, and maybe you can relate to this, is that you start to feel stuck. Like the longer you've lived somewhere, the harder it becomes to leave and the more that inertia starts to set in and it takes even more energy to get, get unstuck and to shift the momentum of your life in a new direction.  

Kristin:    00:23:50    And that's what I started to feel after a couple years of living in the US. It was like it took me a whole nother year of thinking about moving before I actually went into action. And I think this is because of a quote that I think that comes from Tony Robbins where he says that change only happens when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the fear of taking action. And I think that as human beings, we can all relate to it being easier to think about change than it is to actually make changes in your life. But having put myself in uncomfortable situations before I knew that once I crossed that threshold that it was time to take action. And so I did. Now, there are plenty of logical and completely valid reasons why you might want to leave the United States or wherever your home country is.  

Kristin:    00:24:51    And those were the reasons that I left the first couple of times. I mean, every time there's a national election, half of the population threatens to move to Canada. Although I am very grateful to have been born in the United States, I am well aware of the problems that my country has. There's the intense political divisions, there's the high cost of living, the skyrocketing inflation, the dysfunctional healthcare system, the gun violence, the consumer culture, the constant anxiety and rush of the rat race and keeping up with the Joneses. I mean, there's, there's plenty of issues that go on in the United States, but if I'm honest with myself and with you guys, the real reason why I left the US this time wasn't because of all of the things that are wrong with America. It was more personal reasons. Now, I am not saying that traveling is going to solve all of your problems.  

Kristin:    00:25:53    I mean, it probably will create more new and different problems that you didn't have when you are living at home. But one thing that travel can do is that it can give you a new perspective. It can give you a little bit of a reset and a fresh start in life. And I know that each time that I've traveled to a new place and each time I've made a big change, it's always resulted in personal growth and learning. I mean, travel to me is the best real world education, but it's also the best education about who you are in this world. And the longer that I stayed in the US and in my daily routine, the more I felt like I was losing that sense of connection with the outside world, outside of my local community. And the more I started to forget who I was before the pandemic, the first thing that happens when you announce a decision of this magnitude is you get met with a lot of pushback.  

Kristin:    00:27:01    My friends, my family, everyone was like, why? Like, why would you leave this beautiful life that you've created this beautiful place? So many questions. And I couldn't answer all of those logically or rationally. It was mostly just a feeling that this chapter in my life was closing and it was closing fast and it was time to move on. A problem that many of the naysayers face when you're telling them about your plans to make a big life change, like quitting your job or moving to a foreign country, is that they are stuck in the status quo. There's two main problems facing modern day humans are physiological and evolutionary programming, and also our societal and cultural programming. You see, both of these sets of programmings are to keep us safe and to help maintain the status quo and the species for that matter. And so to break out of that is very difficult.  

Kristin:    00:28:04    And it's understandable that people have questions and people want to play devil's advocate when you do something that's out of the ordinary. The other thing you have to contend with is your brain because 95% of your thoughts are the same every day. And unfortunately, the majority of those thoughts are negative. So this can lead to feeling in a rut, and I was definitely feeling that rut. And the quickest way to get out of a rut is a pattern interrupt, changing your behavior, changing your habits, or even changing your country. When you travel, everything is new, everything is different, everything is challenging. And even though it's not always comfortable, you always feel more present and feel more alive. And that is the feeling that I've been missing and craving during these pandemic years. I want to reconnect with that spark of life and that aliveness that only comes through new experiences, personal growth, and meeting new people.  

Kristin:    00:29:12    On a similar note, I've noticed over the past couple years that I have not acclimated to the US culture. Like I mentioned, I lived abroad for 20 years. I came back, and then last year I published a video about how I see the US living abroad and the reverse culture shock that I felt after six or nine months of living here. And now that hasn't gone away. I still feel like an outsider in my home country, and I still don't relate or identify with a lot of the topics of conversation and the wants and the desires of many of the people in my community. I'm not interested in shopping, don't wanna talk about politics. I don't have any office politics or work drama to talk about. I'm not interested in gossip and there's a lot of people here of course, but I just really miss the um, conversations that I have with travelers and with locals in other countries.  

Kristin:    00:30:15    I'm also a bit weirded out by the whole consumer demand cycle in the US It's like you can just tell what time of year it is by walking into a grocery store or walking into a pharmacy at any given time of year. You've got a Valentine's Day that turns into St. Patrick's Day, that turns into the 4th of July, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. It's like from one day to the next, everything changes color from pink to green to red, white, and blue. And it's just like a little bit weird and I feel like I'm living in this weird twilight zone. It's like everything is the same. Like they just changed the flavors of the candies and the foods and the colors of the packaging and, and it's just, I don't know. I don't know how to describe it, but like I quite literally feel like I'm living my own version of Groundhog Day, and I can't tell if it's 2022 or 2020 sometimes.  

Kristin:    00:31:07    Another big reason why I'm leaving is because I can, but not just me. Hundreds of millions of people have found a new sense of work freedom, of location freedom, and they are taking advantage of it. So whether you are moving throughout your country or throughout the world, so many millions of people have been freed from the cubicle, have been freed from the office, and are working remotely. And this is an unprecedented time in history where even in the past year or so, upwards of 50 countries have announced new remote work or digital nomad visas that allow people to apply to live there for one to five years at a time if you earn an online income. And so this is a very exciting time to be alive. You have a one in three or four quadrillion chance of being born at this time. And so I think it's time to seize the day, and that is certainly what I'm going to do.  

Kristin:    00:32:12    No matter how much of the world you've seen, there's always more to explore and there's plenty of places that maybe you're even afraid to go. But magic is what is on the other side of fear. As Jen sincere says, you can't experience new lands from the confines of your comfort zone. The truth of the matter is that true fulfillment comes from doing the hard stuff, the messy stuff. It comes from discomfort. It comes from stretching and challenging yourself. And one of my favorite ways to do that is through travel. Now, as grateful as I am to be from the US, I don't want to live a normal life. I'm much more interested in what people like Mark Twain have to say about it, which is if you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect. Now, I don't know about you, but I've had plenty of time to pause and reflect over the past couple years, and I've come to the conclusion that I want to take the path less traveled.  

Kristin:    00:33:21    I want to live an unconventional life, and to all of my friends and family and people who don't understand why I would leave a good thing for the unknown, I just have to say that it doesn't matter how good your life looks on paper, it doesn't matter how good your life looks from the outside. What really matters is how you're feeling on the inside. So did I make the right decision by packing up all of my stuff and setting off around the world again with a one-way ticket? I don't know. You know, if you were to ask me right here, right now, I would say yes. I'm feeling very at home here in Amsterdam, and I'm very much looking forward to my next destination of Portugal. I think that time will tell, but regardless of where I go next, I hope that you will join me here on the journey. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Thank you again to Henry and Eric for the coffees, and thanks to Malika and Susanna for the five-star reviews. And if you'd like to join me this weekend for a behind-the-scenes tour of my new apartment in Lisbon, then sign up as a patron at patreon.com/travelingwithKristin.